10 years

10 years ago my hubby and I were out for dinner. Back in those days we went out a lot to restaurants (and movies!). I have a clear memory of sitting in a restaurant near our apartment and talking about starting a family. We had been married about a year at this point, and I was nervous to bring up the topic because our general discussions before getting married had consisted of "we'll wait two or three years" to start a family. But I admit I was feeling the urge to have a baby. So I cautiously brought up the topic, wondering what my hubby would say, and his response was "I'm ready whenever you are".

Now 10 years later we have been blessed with 3 amazing children. My littlest baby has just turned 2 years old. TWO! I can hardly believe it. To me this is a big milestone for our family. When my son was two, we were already thinking about baby #2. When my daughter was two, we were in the midst of our 2/3 debate (should we, shouldn't we try for another). As you can guess by the number of children I've mentioned, we did decide 3 was our number and went for it. What I'm trying to say is when each of my older children were 2 years old, I was already getting back into baby mode...planning, thinking, reading. Putting things away hoping it was only for a little while.

The past 10 years have been about being pregnant, preparing for a new baby to join our family, nursing a newborn and moving from baby stage to toddler stage times 3! Now to have a newly turned 2 year old without thoughts of another is definately something new for me. I love the spacing between my kids, part of the reason being I've been blessed to enjoy this babyhood journey for 10 years.

Now with my youngest fully into toddler/preschool mode I find myself getting very excited about the next 10 years...day trips and family vacations without hauling an entire nursery along with me in a diaper bag, not having to work around somebody's naptime, gradually reducing the amount of baby stuff in our house (oh, there's so much) and just enjoying the next phase of our lives with 3 big kids.

Here's hoping the next 10 years are as fun and adventurous as the last 10 have been!!